Halba (Lebanon) - In Halba, in the district of Akkar, in northern Lebanon, a football team called “Al-Nour” – “the light” in Arabic – is drawing increasing attention from the inhabitants of the region. The team was set up by Tareq Al Awaychi, a former star of the Syrian team Al Karami, who had to flee the violence in his country
that has killed over 70,000 people since the beginning of the uprising against
the regime of President Bashar Al-Assad in March 2011.
Tareq arrived in Lebanon, one of some 400,000 Syrian refugees in that country.
Smaller numbers of refugees have fled to Jordan and Turkey. But the trauma
suffered is the same. They have lost their homes, are separated from families
and have to scrape by with whatever they are provided by aid agencies and can
barely eke out a living with employment opportunities hard to come by.
At first, Tareq didn’t want anything to do with football. After witnessing the
death of several close friends and teammates and the terrible suffering of his
fellow compatriots, playing football was the last thing on his mind. However,
Tareq quickly discovered that he couldn’t live without football.
So with the help of the local Community Centre supported by the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which is funded and operated with the Danish
Refugee Council and a local non-governmental organization, he began to pull
together a team composed of both young Syrian refugees and young local Lebanese
players, whom he started coaching.
According to UNHCR’s Senior Community Services Assistant, Farah Hammoudeh, from
the Halba Community Centre, this initiative has been a huge success because it
gives purpose to the young Syrian refugees, and their famous coach, and helps
them overcome the traumatic experiences they have been exposed to in Syria. It
also serves to bring the Syrian refugees and the local host community together.
The team is composed of 18 players – 70 per cent are Syrian refugees and the
rest are young Lebanese. They come together for training twice a week and they
compete against other teams in a local league in the north of Lebanon.
“Being part of the football team is extremely significant, especially for the
young Syrian refugees. It helps them adapt to their new life in Lebanon, deal
with the daily stress and it makes them feel much better,” Ms. Hammoudeh
explained in a telephone interview with the UN News Centre.
